WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILLS. 39 
the port of Yarmouth, and was bought alive by Mr. G. H. Gurney in 
October 1872. Gray, in his ‘ Birds of the West of Scotland,’ mentions a 
specimen shot, in February 1841, near Jedburgh, and also the occurrence 
of a great number, “ twelve or fifteen years ago,” at sea, seen by Dr. Dewar 
“ crossing the Atlantic before a stiff westerly breeze.” Many alighted on 
the steamer when about 600 miles east of Newfoundland, and several were 
captured and brought to this country. In addition to these occurrences, 
Saxby, in his ‘ Birds of Shetland,’ states that he shot two Crossbills at 
Halligarth on the 4th of September 1859, which he refers to the American 
species. 
The European White-win ged Crossbill appears to have a somewhat more 
northerly breeding-range than the Common Crossbill. Henke records it 
as a common resident near Archangel, and it probably breeds in the 
Urals. Middendorff says that it is especially common in the valley of the 
Yenesay, and was the only Crossbill observed between lat. 63° and the 
Arctic circle. Dybowsky is satisfied that it breeds in the mountains near 
Lake Baikal; Middendorff met with it on the Pacific coast in lat. 55°, in 
June. In winter it wanders into South Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Ger- 
many, and has been recorded from Holland, Normandy, Switzerland, the 
Tyrol, Lombardy, and Hungary. 
The American White-winged Crossbill breeds across that continent from 
Alaska to Labrador. It has been obtained in Greenland, and occasionally 
winters in the northern States. It has never been found in Europe, 
except in the British Islands, and possibly in Heligoland. 
The history of the White-winged Crossbill, so far as it is known, is a 
repetition of that of the Common Crossbill. Like its near ally, it isa 
very early breeder, and collects into flocks in summer, which wander south 
in winter. It feeds principally on the cones of larch and spruce, but in 
confinement is very fond of apples. In a cage they are described as 
clinging to the sides and top with their feet, and as apparently enjoying to 
walk with their heads downwards. Both male and female sing well; 
their note is said to be very plaintive, and to resemble the call of the 
Bullfinch. 
Very little appears to be known respecting the nidification of this bird. 
A nest of the American form, obtained by Dr. A. Adams at Fredericton, 
New Brunswick, in 1868, is described by Messrs. Baird, Brewer, and 
Ridgway as “deeply saucer-shaped, and composed of a rather thin wall of 
fibrous pale-green lichens encased on the outside with spruce-twigs and 
thinly lined with coarse hairs and shreds of inner bark. Its external 
diameter is a little less than four inches, the rim being almost perfectly 
circular; the cavity is an inch and a half deep by two and a half broad. 
The one egg is pale blue, the large end rather thickly spattered with 
black and ashy lilac, is regularly or rather slightly elongate oval, the 
